Hello,
I get 11% better score using Linux instead of Win11 on the same rendernode.
AMD 9550X
Now I have build a mixed DR environment for my Vray Standalone DR nodes.
The main standalone node is a win11 and the DR rendernodes are runnig linux.
Works very well.
Kind regards
algato
Don’t quote me please but my assumption is that Linux typically is a bit better suited for handling these types of thread heavy tasks and as a result tends to be a bit faster than Windows.
Not surprising. Linux is designed to run lean especially fresh install that do not have a lot of programs set up to launch on boot. Same concept that makes mining on linux better applies here. Less resources being used by OS means more resources available for rendering. Compare your available resource in win11 right after boot with Linux right after boot. that should explain the performance boost
I have no doubt that what you say is true about Linux being lean but when I’ve got Windows loaded up it idles at just a couple of percent of CPU usage. I haven’t benchmarked on Linux in a while but it was a lot more than a few percentage points over Windows.
I’m curious if anyone can actually explain why Linux is noticeably faster: kernel optimization, security issues, file handlers, memory systems, etc, etc. I’m always seeing anecdotal comments like “Windows is crap” or it’s full of bloatware, but I also always found it hard to believe that the software engineers are Microsoft don’t know what they are doing (they’re at one of the largest companies in the world after all). I’m not saying Windows doesn’t do some non-essential background stuff but it doesn’t seem to account for the total performance discrepancy.
It’s not that windows engineers don’t know what they are doing as much as windows has so many features, apps, network security, app security, that are integrated into the OS and run at all times. Look in you task manager in windows on a fresh boot, the amount of tasks running is massive. What Linux program are you running? Ubuntu? Mint?
Here is a complete explanation of all the factors that contribute to increased performance specifically for vray rendering on Linux
CPU scheduler efficiency (the biggest factor)
Linux’s scheduler (CFS + NUMA balancing) generally:
•Keeps threads pinned more consistently
•Has lower context‑switch overhead
•Handles large NUMA machines (large core counts and threads) more predictably
For workloads like V-Ray Benchmark:
•Massive thread count
•Long-running, fully saturated CPU load
•Minimal user interaction
This is Linux’s sweet spot.
Windows 11 has improved a lot, but:
•It still prioritizes responsiveness
•It still migrates threads more aggressively
•Background components interfere more often
CPU scheduler efficiency (the biggest factor)
Linux’s scheduler (CFS + NUMA balancing) generally:
•Keeps threads pinned more consistently
•Has lower context‑switch overhead
•Handles large NUMA machines (Threadripper PRO) more predictably
For workloads like V-Ray Benchmark:
•Massive thread count
•Long-running, fully saturated CPU load
•Minimal user interaction
This is Linux’s sweet spot.
Windows 11 has improved a lot, but:
•It still prioritizes responsiveness
•It still migrates threads more aggressively
•Background components interfere more often
Thanks Matthew. I just reran the benchmark in Windows 11 and Mint Linux and got 16837 vs 18497, respectively, which a 10% difference. Granted both of these are running as VMs on an unraid server so this comparison should be taken with a HUGE grain of salt but they are configured with the same cpu cores and available ram and both are pretty much clean installs. Idle CPU on Windows is about 1-3% while on linux it’s .2-.4% (not that big of a difference IMO). This matches with you mentioning the CPU scheduler is one of the biggest factors and perhaps not background processes (at least not for raw CPU % but probably interferes with process scheduling). Interesting for sure.
Amen
Task Manager is a lie(despite sometimes using up to 600Mb), after investigation CPU/Gpu/Ram/MemCache registers between a 10 to 20 percent “ghost process” also known as MemoryLeak
11 is a good number but not for Microsoft